


Out of the Dead Land

by awindingstair



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Day One: Spring, F/F, FatT Femslash Week, my original idea for this fic was 'coffeeshop au but also rigour is there'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-14 17:25:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15393717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awindingstair/pseuds/awindingstair
Summary: Tea and Natalya have a chance encounter and a coffee, fifteen years later.





	Out of the Dead Land

The first sign of spring on Counterweight is in the air. It’s never good quality, not matter the season, always thick and hot and smoky despite the filtration systems of the domes, but in spring, it becomes an almost physical barrier. You step outside the double-filtered and conditioned air of Constellation Coffee only to ram face first into a wall of smog.

Tea is beginning to wish she’d bought an iced coffee instead of an espresso.

Tea’s never been a climatologist or a biologist. She was a soldier, and now she’s a freedom fighter, or a rebel, or a terrorist, depending on who you ask. But she’s learned about how Counterweight works. She couldn’t not. All that time spent wondering how much of this was her fault: the blight of this planet, of J—

Counterweight’s seasons aren’t like they used to be, but they still exist. All the life that was stolen from its soils and transplanted to its sister satellite is gone, but that can’t people from tracking foreign seeds and microbes and animals into the dirt, some hardy enough to withstand the atmospheric problems. So in spring, the scraggly little plants that hide in the dry, empty ground outside the domes crawl toward the sun and flower into ugly orange blossoms, spitting out pollen in such quantities that even people who usually go without face masks find themselves donning one for the length of the season.

So Tea is adjusting hers on her face, and blinking her cybernetic eye, which always fucks up when the temperature changes, and stuffing her too-hot coffee into the bag on her back. She's trying not to resent the mask, or think about the picture-perfect weather over on Weight.

That’s when she sees a woman she didn’t expect to meet again.

Natalya Greaves is walking down the narrow sidewalk. It’s her. Her hair’s been shaved from rigorously maintained coils down to stubble half-wrapped in cloth. Maskless, she’s avoiding the eye contact of other pedestrians. Her shoulders are bowed, like she’s trying to protect herself. She looks sick and sad. Not like the Natalya Tea remembers, who was shy, yeah, but fierce. Who let Tea touch her arm, and put her thumb to Tea’s cheek. Who laughed like an accident.

But it’s her.

She scans the crowd, catches sight of Tea staring straight at her, and bolts.

Tea allows herself about a second to think.

Then she texts her second-in-command.

Then she runs.

Tea is still as in shape as she was in the Golden War. Maybe better. She works at it. It matters, because who knows when the Weightless will need to strike an important blow, when the Diaspora or Apostolos will pull something, when the fighting will get bad again. She tries to be ready, because one thing she’s learned is you can’t predict war in advance.

Still, Natalya is surprisingly fast, and pedestrians keep blocking Tea’s way. 

Focus, focus. 

She can’t let the lurching of her heart distract her. 

There’s Natalya, doubling back and heading the way Tea came, toward the coffee place.

Tea catches her by the hand. Her skin is hot, almost feverish. “Natalya.”

Natalya looks at her, slowing to a stop, and pulls her hand away. Her skin is puffy, the circles under her eyes are dark, her suit is mussed and ill-fitting. Her brown face is blank with terror.

“It’s me. Tea. Tea _Kenridge_. From the Seventh Sun.” Tea can’t help but wince at what she sees in Natalya’s face. Not because it’s foreign, no. It’s familiar. “I’m not going to hurt you. It’s okay.” You’d think all those times she got Rethal through panic attacks, she’d have learned how by now. But he was the one who was good at talking people down. That was why her crew went to him, and not to their hardhead captain.

Natalya mumbles something, so quiet that the rush of a taxi flying by easily drowns out her voice. She steps backward, wobbly.

Tea forces herself to stay still, to bend her back and knees out of their usual straightness. Just like she’s talking to Jace. To Lotz. Friendly, not aggressive. She doesn’t need to scare her friends. “It’s been a while. I was surprised to see you. I kind of thought you’d—” She sucks her breath in and stops. “I missed you.”

That’s hard to say, through the knot growing in her throat — Natalya looks like she hasn’t slept in _days_ — but it’s true. So.

Natalya sways on her feet, stammers “You can’t be here. ‘S not safe.”

“We’re on _Counterweight_. It’s never safe.” What kind of trouble does Natalya think she’s in that Tea can’t handle it? Tea’s used to danger. That’s kind of her whole life.

She blinks. “Counterweight? No. It was on Ionias —” she breaks off into coughs.

“Spring on Counterweight, Greaves, you should be wearing a filter.” Tea cautiously moves closer and puts a hand on Natalya’s back. “You can have mine, but you owe me.” She peels hers off her face, offering it with a more confident smile than she feels, and womanfully ignores the slam of hot air into her face.

Natalya lets it dangle in her hand and looks at Tea, glasses slipping down her nose. With both of them unmasked, Tea can tell her breath smells like paint thinner, and she enunciates too clearly, like she’s drunk: “You’ve been here, fighting the Diaspora. This whole time. Almost fifteen years.”

Tea freezes and carefully doesn’t reach for a weapon. “You don’t know that. How can you know that?”

“You know how.” There’s a flinty look in her eyes. Natalya straightens herself up. She doesn’t quite shake off Tea’s hand, but Tea lets go.

“I guess I do,” Tea says. The Rapid Evening. She knows more and less about it than she did back then. “We’re... both doing what we have to, right?”

Natalya doesn’t move, but all of a sudden Tea remembers how small the woman is. “What we have to. Yes.”

“I mean.” Tea chokes in what feels like a solid chunk of smog. “If you’re in trouble. With them. Or with whatever. It doesn’t matter. I’ll help you. Everything would’ve been so much worse without you.”

“Everything’s going to be worse,” Natalya says bleakly, her voice breaking, “ _with_ me. It’s too strong. I don’t even know if it gave me up or it wants me here. It probably does. It’s probably _watching_ right now!”

Tea watches her struggle to stay upright. Natalya’s in danger, that much is clear. Maybe something too dangerous for the Rapid Evening to handle. So the question is, is Tea willing to jeopardize her operation just to try to help one woman?

One woman from fifteen years ago?

She knows the answer.

“Okay. C’mon.” She brushes her thumb against Natalya’s cheek and then helps her pull on the air filter. “Do you still like coffee?”

“What?” 

“I got something from the Constellation Coffee. Real Oricon espresso, none of that Diaspora stuff. I don’t go for pomegranate.”

Natalya just stares at her, so Tea fishes the cup back out of her bag. Shows it to her. “Have some. Or whatever you want. I’ll get you somewhere safe. Where we can talk.”

“Oh.” Natalya sags forward, forehead landing on Tea's chest, and laughs helplessly. “The things inside me — you don’t know what you’re doing right now.”

It’s Tea’s turn to be briefly speechless. Natalya really is warm.

“But I missed you too,” Natalya whispers. “I missed everyone. I hated feeling like the only one left.”

Tea picks her up, despite Natalya’s muffled squeak, because it’ll help them move faster. “Some of us are still around,” she says. “And we’re gonna stay, too. You’ll see.”

For once, Tea believes it.

**Author's Note:**

> Natalya prefers a good oolong to an espresso.


End file.
